Riḍā, Rashīd

Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 BrillOnline.com BrillOnline Reference Works ▶ Home > Middle East and Islamic Studies > Qurʾānic Studies Online > Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān > Riḍā, Rashīd Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān Riḍā, Rashīd (5,705 words) Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā (1865–1935) was the main author of an extensive, incomplete Qurʾānic commentary best known as Tafsīr al-manār, which took its name from the journal al-Manār, edited by Rashīd Riḍā, in which it was originally published. Originally, the tafsīr was based on the exegetical lectures of Muḥammad ʿAbduh, but it was continued and further developed by Rashīd Riḍā to include a wide range of additional material and address specific contemporaneous issues. Rashīd Riḍā’s interest in using the Qurʾān to solve social and political problems was as unconventional as the journalistic form this often took. He also engaged in polemics against translating the Qurʾān. Article Table of Contents Life and exegetical activity The emergence of the Tafsīr al-manār Exegetical outlook Style, structure, and sources Life and exegetical activity Muḥammad Rashīd b. ʿAlī Riḍā b. Muḥammad Shams alDīn b. Muḥammad Bahāʾ al-Dīn b. Munlā ʿAlī Khalīfa alBaghdādī was born on 27 Jumādā I 1282/23 September 1865 in the village of Qalamūn, on the Mediterranean coast near Tripoli, in Greater Syria. His family, along with most of the other inhabitants of the village, claimed to be direct descendants of the prophet Muḥammad (Sharabāṣī, 102–7). After being educated for a time in a http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Contemporaneous issues Rashīd Riḍā and the translation of the Qurʾān Reception Seite 1 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 traditional Islamic village school (kuttāb), Rashīd Bibliography Riḍā was enrolled in the Rashīdiyya elementary school in Tripoli, which was run by the Ottoman state, and in which the language of instruction was Turkish. He left it after only a year because, he claimed later, he had no wish to become a servant of the state. Around 1882, he enrolled in the private Islamic Waṭaniyya school in Tripoli. This school had been founded by the religious scholar Ḥusayn al-Jisr, whose aim was to combine Islamic and secular education. After the school was closed by the Ottoman authorities, Rashīd Riḍā pursued his education with Ḥusayn al-Jisr and other scholars for a number of years (Sharabāṣī, 120–2). In 1884, he became acquainted with the ideas of Jamāl al-Dīn al-Afghānī (1838–97) and Muḥammad ʿAbduh (ca. 1849–1905), through parts of their journal al-ʿUrwa alwuthqā that called Muslims to progress, unification, and political independence from Europe. He met Muḥammad ʿAbduh during the latter’s period of exile in Lebanon shortly after that, but was unsuccessful in his attempts to contact al-Afghānī. In 1892–3, he discovered a complete set of al-ʿUrwa al-wuthqā that left a deep impression on him, and later he met Muḥammad ʿAbduh again. Eventually, partly because of his dissatisfaction with the political climate in Ottoman Syria and partly because of his fascination with ʿAbduh, he moved to Cairo at the beginning of 1898 (Sharabāṣī, 130–6; Hourani, 226). There, he founded a publishing house and a journal entitled al-Manār (“The Lighthouse”). Publishing this journal became his mission in life; other activities, particularly his attempt to found a school, were ultimately unsuccessful (Ende). The first edition of al-Manār appeared in March 1898, and Rashīd Riḍā continued to produce it right up until his death in 1935. He published contributions by various Muslim intellectuals, but most of the articles were his own (Ende; Jomier, al-Manār). This is also true for the considerable amount of exegetical material found in the journal. Rashīd Riḍā was an extremely prolific writer who not only published 35 volumes of his journal and numerous collections of material from it, but also a number of independent books. His legacy is immense, complex, and, despite much secondary literature, insufficiently studied. Here, only his works with a direct bearing on the interpretation of the Qurʾān and its function for Muslims will be discussed. The first and most significant of these is the Tafsīr al-manār. The emergence of the Tafsīr al-manār The Tafsīr al-manār, originally entitled Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ḥalīm or, in later editions, al-ḥakīm, derived much of its fame from Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s contributions to it. In secondary literature, it has sometimes been viewed as identical with Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s exegesis of the Qurʾān, with Rashīd Riḍā being depicted, at best, as Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s faithful disciple who expounded his master’s work (see, e.g., Jansen, 18–34; Carré; Hourani, 226–7). However, at least 85% of the material in the Tafsīr al-manār was written by Rashīd Riḍā. Moreover, due to the http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 2 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 fact that Muḥammad ʿAbduh died in 1905 and Rashīd Riḍā continued to publish this Qurʾānic commentary until his own death in 1935, much of it is not based on any of Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s lectures but reflects political developments that had not been foreseen by Muḥammad ʿAbduh, such as the First World War and the abolition of the caliphate. Rashīd Riḍā’s role as an exegete in his own right is thrown into sharp relief against the backdrop of the publication history of the Tafsīr al-manār. Right from the beginning of his time in Cairo, Rashīd Riḍā had tried to convince Muḥammad ʿAbduh to write a Qurʾānic commentary in the spirit of al-ʿUrwa al-wuthqā. Muḥammad ʿAbduh was sceptical about the need for such a work, his capacity to produce it, and its potential impact, but he eventually started giving exegetical lectures at Cairo’s al-Azhar mosque in 1899. His intention was merely to elaborate aspects that had not been discussed by earlier exegetes. Rashīd Riḍā started to publish his transcripts of these lectures in al-Manār in 1900, possibly as a means to boost his journal’s appeal. Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s lectures covered Q 1:1 to Q 4:125. When he was still alive, Muḥammad ʿAbduh proofread and authorised the material that Rashīd Riḍā had prepared for publication, but at the time of his death no more than his commentary on the first sūra and half of the second had been published in the journal. When Rashīd Riḍā started publishing the Tafsīr al-manār as a Qurʾānic commentary in book form after Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s death, he included extensive additions to the original al-Manār articles; hundreds of transcripts that Muḥammad ʿAbduh had never had the opportunity to authorise; and his own commentary on both these transcripts and the remaining text of the Qurʾān up to the end of the twelfth juzʾ (Q 12:52) (Pink, ʿAbduh). The beginning of the thirteenth juzʾ up to Q 12:107 was discussed in the final editions of al-Manār, but due to Rashīd Riḍā’s own death this was not continued or published as a book (Jomier, Commentaire, XVI). An authoritative, up-to-date study of the Tafsīr al-manār that takes an interest not only in the ideas it presents but also in its exegetical methods and sources is still lacking (cf. Jomier, Commentaire, XI, who maintains that there is little interest in the methods of modern Qurʾānic exegesis as manifested in the Tafsīr almanār). Exegetical outlook Since Rashīd Riḍā started his exegetical activity by editing, amending, and publishing ʿAbduh’s lectures, his own methodology and hermeneutical perspective only developed over time. For example, he introduced the innovation of summarising the main themes and functions of each sūra. He only started this with the fourth sūra, and then on a modest scale, but expanded it in subsequent sūras, later adding an introduction to the second sūra (Jomier, Commentaire, 64–5). He also added a short introduction to the first volume of the printed edition of the tafsīr, which precedes Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s original opening words. In this introduction, he took up the latter’s central idea that the Qurʾān was meant to be a book of guidance (hidāya) and therefore should form the basis for the reforms that Rashīd Riḍā considered incumbent http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 3 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 upon Muslim societies. The Qurʾān thus takes a central role not only in religious practice but in all aspects of social life. According to Rashīd Riḍā, the Qurʾān was what guided the first Arab Muslims to power by uniting a world split into various empires and tribes and enabled them to recreate civilisation after the demise of previous, polytheist civilisations. However, they allowed their own civilisation to become corrupted and detached from the true teachings of the Qurʾān, thereby losing their power. Once again, Muslims will have to follow the teachings of the Qurʾān in order to unify, recreate Islamic civilisation, and regain their former power. Yet the tradition of Qurʾānic exegesis had distracted Muslims from these core messages by focussing their attention on details of grammar, rhetoric, and kalām, according to Rashīd Riḍā. He also believed that most jurists, mystics, and theologians had sought to use the Qurʾān only to demonstrate the truth of their own ideas. Rashīd Riḍā specifically attacked Fakhr al-Dīn alRāzī (c. 543–606/1149–1209) for neglecting the meaning of the text due to his preoccupation with sciences such as astronomy. He also drew a disparaging parallel with his contemporaries whom he accused of randomly using the Qurʾān in order to present information on the natural sciences, by which he obviously meant Ṭanṭāwī Jawharī (1862–1940). In short, in Rashīd Riḍā’s opinion the Qurʾān is neither a book of science nor of philology, but one of divine guidance to humans and human societies (Jomier, Commentaire, 46–8). However, Rashīd Riḍā avoided the full implications of this disparaging critique of nearly the entire exegetical tradition. He pointed out that the proper understanding of the Qurʾān’s guidance has several prerequisites. Among these is some knowledge of the world so as to be able to comprehend God’s customs (sunan Allāh) in dealing with human societies and a certain degree of learning with respect to the Arabic language. Furthermore, some of the transmitted material on the Prophet, his Companions, and the scholars of the subsequent generation of Muslims is also needed, although, according to Rashīd Riḍā, very little of this material is authentic. He drew extensively on Ibn Taymiyya (661–728/1263–1328) and his disciple Ibn Kathīr (c. 700–74/1300–73) in order to bring up the polemical notion of isrāʾīliyyāt: untrustworthy traditions that were introduced into Muslim scholarship by Jews, Christians, or non-Muslim Persians, possibly with subversive intent. This notion had been promoted particularly by Ibn Taymiyya’s school (Calder, 121–5), and Rashīd Riḍā strongly contributed to its revival (Tottoli, 208). Even the Jewish and Christian Bible are not reliable, in Rashīd Riḍā’s opinion, since their contents might have been falsified by their adherents. In order to safeguard oneself against the use of fabricated traditions, one should preferably rely on authentic (ṣaḥīḥ) ḥadīths, he argued, referring to al-Ṭabarī as an exegete who had followed that practice. He saw the merit of his own tafsīr primarily in its focus on the guidance that the Qurʾān delivers to mankind, and secondly in its contribution to addressing the problems of his age while simultaneously refuting allegations from those preoccupied with science and philosophy (Riḍā and ʿAbduh, 1:7-10). http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 4 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 Towards the end of his career, Rashīd Riḍā expounded these rather brief and vague introductory notes. In the eleventh volume of the Tafsīr al-manār, after his commentary on Q 10:1–2, where the signs (or verses; Ar. āyāt) of the Wise Book and God’s revelation to a messenger are mentioned, he inserted a programmatic excursus of approximately 150 pages. The first part of this was devoted to countering Western arguments against both the prophethood of Muḥammad and the Qurʾān as divine revelation; the second part outlined Rashīd Riḍā’s vision of the Qurʾān, including its inimitability and fundamental characteristics (Riḍā and ʿAbduh, 11:146–293). He published an expanded version of this treatise as a book entitled al-Waḥy al-Muḥammadī (“The Muḥammadan revelation”) in 1933. Hermeneutics and apologetics are closely interconnected in this work. It includes an extensive exposition of the Qurʾān’s main aims (maqāṣid) with respect to human progress and development. Here, Rashīd Riḍā gave the impression that his method of reading the Qurʾān does not consist of a set of techniques, but, rather, of a number of overarching doctrines that define how specific statements within the text have to be understood; however, it must be underlined that he presented this method after the bulk of his exegetical work had already been published. The first two of the ten aims outlined by Rashīd Riḍā deal with religion in a narrow sense. They concern, first, the basic tenets of religion, worship, and good deeds, and second, the existence and purpose of prophethood. The remaining eight aims focus on Rashīd Riḍā’s central theme, which was reform: the development of man’s intellect and the prohibition of taqlīd (blind following of a school of law or, more generally, earlier authorities); social and political reform through Muslim unity; the instigation of responsibility through duties and prohibitions; the principles of an Islamic political order; economic reform; the main tenets of just war; the improvement of women’s rights; and the emancipation of slaves (Riḍā, al-Waḥy, 191–348). This focus on higher aims (maqāṣid) is reminiscent of al-Shāṭibī, and indeed al-Shāṭibī is one of the pre-modern scholars whom Rashīd Riḍā held in high esteem and quoted repeatedly, if rather eclectically, throughout his Qurʾānic commentary. Other icons of reform that Rashīd Riḍā drew upon include al-Ghazālī and Ibn Taymiyya (Jomier, Commentaire, 60–1). The underlying idea was that Islamic reform was an ongoing process throughout the centuries that involved repeated efforts to purify Islam from corruption. This corruption, claimed Riḍā, was made possible by scholars who allowed their academic concerns to create disunity and obfuscate the Qurʾān’s true message, a message embodied in the practice of the first generations of Muslims (salaf ). Rashīd Riḍā saw Muḥammad ʿAbduh and himself as part of a chain of reformers fighting corruption and the scholars’ who caused it. Style, structure, and sources The Tafsīr al-manār started out as Rashīd Riḍā’s publication of Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s lectures on the Qurʾān, and five out of its twelve volumes incorporate transcripts of these lectures. The way in which Rashīd Riḍā embedded them into the commentary is complex. In general, he http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 5 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 took care to mark clearly which parts were from Muḥammad ʿAbduh and which were his own (Jomier, Commentaire, 51–2). While the beginning of the commentary gave a relatively large amount of emphasis to Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s interpretations, after the end of the second juzʾ (Q 2:252), in the volumes published after the latter’s death, the transcripts of Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s lectures were shortened and Rashīd Riḍā’s amendments extensive. Even in the parts that had been authorised by Muḥammad ʿAbduh when he was alive, Rashīd Riḍā added to the version published in book form comments that frequently re-interpreted Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s ideas without explicitly declaring them false. This could happen for various reasons. First, Rashīd Riḍā favoured a more literalist reading of the text than Muḥammad ʿAbduh; for example, he rejected the possibility that Qurʾānic figures such as Adam and Abraham might not have been historical (Soage, 6). Secondly, Rashīd Riḍā was frequently uncomfortable with ideas expressed by Muḥammad ʿAbduh that went against the mainstream of the exegetical tradition, such as the latter’s conviction that the Fātiḥa (Q 1) was the first revelation to Muḥammad; Rashīd Riḍā and many other exegetes, in contrast, thought it was Q 96:1 (ʿAbduh, 21–7; Riḍā and ʿAbduh, 1:34–8). Thirdly, Rashīd Riḍā made much more of an effort than Muḥammad ʿAbduh to corroborate exegetical opinions with quotations from previous works of tafsīr and/or ḥadīths. Fourthly, he sometimes pursued his own dogmatic agenda, which, for example, induced him to qualify considerably and narrow Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s belief, based on Q 2:62, that Jews and Christians may enter Paradise (Riḍā and ʿAbduh, 1:333–9; 6:476–8). In general, he was more attached to the pre-modern exegetical tradition than was Muḥammad ʿAbduh, and his recourse to the example of the salaf was more conservative; he often used it to defend established norms and practices against Western-style innovations (Van Nispen tot Sevenaer, Activité humaine, 473–4). In the Tafsīr al-manār Rashīd Riḍā explored a new style and introduced new source-types to the genre of tafsīr. These tendencies became more apparent the further the commentary moved away from the direct influence of Muḥammad ʿAbduh. Rashīd Riḍā, unlike Muḥammad ʿAbduh, was not a religious scholar by training. He aimed at addressing the elites not only of the madrasa system, but also in the government bureaucracy and other sectors of society. Thus, while Rashīd Riḍā made a point of retaining many of the elements of pre-modern Qurʾān commentaries, such as linguistic explanations, ḥadīth material, occasions of revelation, and transmitted exegetical opinions, he drew on a much wider repertoire of genres and themes in order to engage with his intended audience. Many of these reflected the massive changes that the Muslim world had undergone in the previous decades through new modes of transportation and communication, the advent of print culture, and the influence of Western science as a new paradigm that Riḍā did not want to ignore. Wherever he considered it appropriate, he included in his commentary letters written to him by Muslims from across the world and his own responses to them, as well as quotations from newspaper articles, books, and speeches, often by European authors in Arabic translation. These might concern anything from medical issues to debates on women’s rights; they might be directly pertinent to the http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 6 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 interpretation of a Qurʾānic verse or they might be an excursus into a topic that Rashīd Riḍā considered relevant. The journalistic origin of the Tafsīr al-manār thus permeated its structure and thoroughly influenced its approach to the Qurʾān. The commentary consciously retained from Arabic manuscript culture the practice of overlining Qurʾānic verses instead of underlining them, clearly demonstrating Rashīd Riḍā’s aversion to adopting European conventions. On the other hand, he did introduce the innovation of verse numbering and headlines detailing the number of the sūra and the juzʾ in order to reach an audience without a background in Qurʾānic scholarship. Instead of individual verses, Rashīd Riḍā discussed longer segments of text. He sought – unlike Muḥammad ʿAbduh – to produce a complete commentary on each segment of the Qurʾān, which meant that although he started by clarifying linguistic problems, he did so only very briefly and only insofar as he thought it necessary to understand the text. He was more eloquent when it came to demonstrating the stylistic inimitability of the Qurʾān. This often had an apologetic impetus, for example when he extensively justified the existence of repetitions by arguing that they are rhetorically indispensable in order to help the audience understand the message properly. Rashīd Riḍā was also concerned with demonstrating the inner logic of the Qurʾān’s structure, often by drawing on al-Biqāʿī’s (809–85/1406–80) remarks about the interrelation between subsequent verses (munāsaba). Rashīd Riḍā also adduced relevant occasions of revelation and ḥadīths, something that had not interested Muḥammad ʿAbduh (Jomier, Commentaire, 53–9). Thus, when the Tafsīr al-manār mentions previous exegetes or other external sources, this nearly always goes back to Rashīd Riḍā. While a detailed study of his sources is still lacking, it is clear that he had a number of recurrent authorities. Many of these were rather common in the Sunnī exegesis of his time. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī’s tafsīr, despite the vehement criticism of it that Rashīd Riḍā expressed in his introduction, is a common source, as is that by alZamakhsharī (467–538/1075–1144). For authentic traditions, Rashīd Riḍā held al-Ṭabarī (c. 225–310/c. 839–923) in high esteem, as he did the Tafsīr al-Jalālayn for brief philological explanations. The works of al-Bayḍāwī (d. c. 685/1286), al-Nīsābūrī (d. c. 729/1329), al-Suyūṭī (849–911/1445–1505), and the relatively recent commentary by al-Ālūsī (1217–70/1802–54) are also cited repeatedly. Al-Biqāʿī was Rashīd Riḍā’s authority for the interconnection between verses, as was Ibn Kathīr for isrāʾīliyyāt. Rashīd Riḍā used all these earlier exegetical works at his convenience, either to strengthen an argument or to refute it, and he ignored them altogether when he deemed it appropriate. However, he was unwilling to disregard the exegetical tradition altogether, and in the later stages of his exegetical activity manuals and theoretical works from the field of Islamic law came to play an increasingly prominent role (Jomier, Commentaire, 59–61). http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 7 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 Despite his extensive use of these conventional elements of Qurʾānic exegesis, the largest proportion of the commentary was taken up by what Rashīd Riḍā termed the “guidance” (hidāya) of the Qurʾān. This often took the style of a sermon, which indicates that modern mass-media had the potential of translating traditions of oral exegesis into print. Rashīd Riḍā frequently supplied stories in order to make the Qurʾān’s message plausible or to appeal to his audience’s emotions. He also addressed contemporaneous themes and issues, either rather generally, or in relation to specific events. As has become apparent from Rashīd Riḍā’s presentation of the aims of the Qurʾān, such themes are a major concern of the Tafsīr almanār. Contemporaneous issues The themes Rashīd Riḍā discussed in his Qurʾānic commentary were largely the same as in his broader oeuvre. He had started his tafsīr project because he was fascinated with al-Afghānī’s and Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s calls for Muslim unity and social progress with the aim of gaining independence from European powers and returning the Muslim world to a position of dominance. However, the context to which these ideas could be applied changed throughout Rashīd Riḍā’s career. The rise of both Arab and Egyptian nationalism, the end of the Ottoman caliphate, and the emergence of Saudi Arabia were all factors that influenced the development of his thought. His main aim in interpreting the Qurʾān was to demonstrate the need for social and political reform, technological progress, unity, and independence from Europe in the realms of both politics and ideas. In order to support this call for action, Rashīd Riḍā drew heavily on the Qurʾānic term sunan Allāh, God’s way of dealing with His creation that follows a set of unchanging rules (Q 3:137; 33:38, 62; 35:43; 40:85; 48:23). According to Rashīd Riḍā’s interpretation of this concept, the fate of previous peoples is indicative of the fate that will befall future nations. In order to help humans understand this, God repeatedly and extensively narrated in the Qurʾān the fates of previous peoples who failed to listen to the prophets. The downfall of a people invariably occurred when they, out of selfishness, laziness, or fatalism, refused to implement God’s message, to use their God-given intellect, to follow the principles of good governance, and to purify their society from corruption. Therefore, trust in God (tawakkul) is the opposite of fatalism; it means to follow his sunan and it rewards those who actively seek to create a community governed by Islamic principles (Van Nispen tot Sevenaer, Activité humaine; Ivanyi, God’s Custom; Jomier, Raison). The failure of past Muslims to do so and the subsequent demise of their societies Rashīd Riḍā blamed on apolitical, obscurantist religious scholars (ʿulamāʾ) (Ivanyi, Who’s in Charge, 181). Furthermore, he vehemently attacked everything to do with Ṣūfism which, in his opinion, promotes superstition, blind obedience to authorities, and un-Islamic practices of worship (Jomier, Commentaire, 236–60). http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 8 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 Besides these internal enemies, Rashīd Riḍā was highly concerned with external ones. This found its clearest expression in apologetics and anti-Christian polemics. He mostly focussed on contemporaneous European Christians; Middle-Eastern Christians or Jews interested him less (Jomier, Commentaire, 122–30, 301–37; cf. McAuliffe, 215). To a certain extent, he made use of the burgeoning Western scholarship on historical criticism of the Bible in order to refute Christian beliefs. However, the number of sources he used in his tafsīr was fairly limited (Jomier, Commentaire, 61–2; cf. Ryad, 19–52), partly due to his lack of knowledge of foreign languages (Brunner, 84), which meant that he had access only to texts that had been translated into Arabic. His apologetic stance went far beyond discussions of Christian beliefs and attempts to demonstrate the divine origin of the Qurʾān; it can also be seen in his treatment of issues that were the cause of many contemporary debates and attacks by European observers on Islam, most notably slavery and the status of women. The importance of these themes in polemics against Islam is reflected by the fact that Rashīd Riḍā included the emancipation of slaves and the dignity of women among the ten major aims of the Qurʾān. His argument is based on the fundamental assumption that the status of both women and slaves was deplorable in all pre-Islamic societies and that the Qurʾān strove to improve it. An immediate abolition of slavery would not have been realistic; therefore, Rashīd Riḍā asserted, the Qurʾān introduced steps through which a gradual abolition was bound to occur (Jomier, Commentaire, 231–3). Women, in his opinion, were granted extensive rights, for example with respect to marriage, property, and education. The differences between the rights and duties of women and those of men are due to the innate biological properties of each sex. Furthermore, Rashīd Riḍā strove to demonstrate that certain legal norms that were based on the Qurʾān and often criticised as demeaning to women, such as the right of Muslim men to take female prisoners of war as concubines and the right of men to marry up to four women, were in reality beneficial to women and superior to the state of affairs in European societies. By the same token, he sought to protect Muslim societies from Western innovations that might engender promiscuity and prove harmful to society, such as removing the veil from women’s fashion, the free choice of spouses, and mixed dance events (Jomier, Commentaire, 182–90). Rashīd Riḍā derived from the Qurʾān the main principles of a political, social, and economic order, one in which a unified Muslim umma should be ruled by a caliph who was to rely on consultation(shūrā), a principle that Rashīd Riḍā strongly endorsed despite being rather vague about its practical implications (Dupret; Ivanyi, Who’s in Charge). Justice and welfare should be among the primary aims of government; as such, Rashīd Riḍā underlined the strong emphasis the Qurʾān places on almsgiving (Riḍā, Waḥy, 193–203). Rashīd Riḍā and the translation of the Qurʾān http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 9 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 A central aspect of Rashīd Riḍā’s engagement with the Qurʾān was his polemic against the text being translated into other languages. While not a completely new phenomenon, Qurʾān translations acquired a new relevance in the context of print culture, nation states, and close contact with Christian missionaries who used Bible translations as equivalents of the original source text(s). The same Christian missionaries frequently used Qurʾān translations in order to refute Muslim beliefs. Another factor influencing Rashīd Riḍā’s attitude towards Qurʾān translations was the early and sustained effort of the Aḥmadiyya movement, of which he disapproved, to produce such translations (Brunner, 99). Through the presence of travellers and exiles from the Ottoman Empire in Cairo, Rashīd Riḍā learned of ideas to produce a “Turkish Qurʾān,” and through correspondence with Muslims from the Russian Empire he became aware of the desire of non-Arab Muslims to translate the Qurʾān for educational purposes. Rashīd Riḍā repeatedly rejected such ambitions throughout his career, including in a fatwā published in al-Manār in 1908, in several further articles published in the same journal before 1932, and in a number of instances in the Tafsīr al-manār, most notably in a treatise of fifty pages published in the ninth volume in 1928. He declared Arabic the only language with the potential to unify all Muslims across national boundaries as well as being the oldest and most civilised language (Brunner, 85–8). His opinion on the topic thus emphasised the global nature of Islam, but was simultaneously characterised by an Arab nationalist impulse that accorded lower value to all other languages. He admitted that translations might be admissible in order to proselytise among non-Muslims, especially since Christian missionaries were able to draw on Bible translations for their efforts. Muslims, however, had a duty to learn sufficient Arabic for ritual practice and any reform of Islam could only be based on the Arabic Qurʾān, especially since it requires independent legal reasoning (ijtihād), which cannot possibly draw on anything but the original text. The Qurʾān itself, he argued, makes a point of being an Arabic book, and its inimitability makes it impossible to translate it literally. Anything but a literal translation, however, would express no more than a specific translator’s understanding. Furthermore, translating it into various languages would prove divisive, i.e. cause fitna, and would undermine the ultimate aim of uniting all people in one religion and language. The loss of adherence to Arab rulers and to the unifying power of the Arabic language was, according to Rashīd Riḍā, a major cause of the decline of Muslim societies. He quoted examples of Muslims, for example on Java, who had fallen prey to Christian missionaries because they had had insufficient knowledge of the Qurʾān. Ideally, in his view, a Muslim should learn enough Arabic to understand the Qurʾān; alternatively, interpretations of the Qurʾān in languages other than Arabic were permissible as long as it was made clear that they only express the interpreter’s understanding (Brunner, 98–106; Riḍā, Fatāwā, 642–50; Jomier, Commentaire, 342–7). Rashīd Riḍā’s opinion on Qurʾān translations tied in with his views on education. He maintained that the study of Arabic should be compulsory in all Muslim schools and that uneducated Muslims should merely learn a certain number of short sūras for recitation in http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 10 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 prayer, while religious scholars should explain the meaning of those and of some additional verses. Thus, he emphasised the role of religious scholars as custodians of the Qurʾān and of Islamic education, carrying out religious reform on the basis of the Arabic Qurʾān; the need of lay Muslims to engage with the contents of the Qurʾān was, in his opinion, negligible, and should be satisfied by religious scholars (Wilson, 120–3). Reception The Tafsīr al-manār is quoted directly relatively rarely in later Qurʾānic commentaries (Jomier, Commentaire, 348–57), although it was an important resource for the considerably shorter Tafsīr al-Marāghī, which was published around 1945 and became fairly popular, especially in Southeast Asia (Pink, Sunnitischer Tafsīr, 45). Rashīd Riḍā’s aim of applying the teachings of the Qurʾān to the problems of his own time did, however, have a drawback: his interpretations were so closely tied to specific circumstances that they had a tendency to become outdated fast and thus appeared to be of little relevance to later generations. Other aspects of his thought failed to exert a major influence because they were too idealistic and based on a limited horizon: Rashīd Riḍā had little knowledge of foreign languages, travelled rarely and had no first-hand experience with the situation of Muslims outside the regions belonging to the late Ottoman Empire. Thus, the campaign against Qurʾān translations, in which Riḍā participated alongside several other influential Egyptian scholars, never had much influence in non-Arabic-speaking countries, and even in Egypt it ground to a halt as early as the 1930s (Wilson, 215–6). On the other hand, Rashīd Riḍā proved extremely influential through his introduction of certain general themes into the discourse on the Qurʾān not only in Egypt, but also in many other regions of the Islamicate world. Some of these were based on Muḥammad ʿAbduh’s ideas, others were Rashīd Riḍā’s own. Understanding the Qurʾān as a book of guidance and immediate relevance not only in religious, but also in worldly affairs; the idea of reading it in light of its overall aims (maqāṣid); distrust of Ṣūfism, scholastic theology, and the schools of law; a focus on unity; the apologetic impetus; the emphasis on the inimitability of the Qurʾān; the introduction of scholars such as Ibn Taymiyya and al-Shāṭibī into the exegetical tradition; and the appeal to the example of the salaf are the aspects of Rashīd Riḍā’s exegetical thought that were widely appropriated. Some of the intellectuals and organisations that were inspired by Rashīd Riḍā were modernists, but perhaps even more distinct is his influence on the Muslim Brotherhood and its offshoots, which is also discernible in the revolutionary Qurʾānic commentary by Sayyid Quṭb (L’Hopital; van Nispen tot Sevenaer, Commentaire; Soage). Johanna Pink Bibliography http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 11 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 Sources Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Tafsīr al-Fātiḥa, Cairo 1319/1901-2 Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā and Muḥammad ʿAbduh, Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ḥalīm/ḥakīm [Tafsīr almanār], vol. 1, Cairo 1366/19472; vol. 6, Cairo 1327/19092; vol. 11, Cairo 1349/19311 Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, Fatāwā al-imām Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, ed. Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn alMunajjid and Yūsuf Q. Khūrī, vol. 1, Beirut 1390/1970 Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā, al-Waḥy al-Muḥammadī. Thubūt al-nubuwwa bi-l-Qurʾān wa-daʿwat shuʿūb al-madaniyya ilā l-Islām dīn al-ukhuwwa al-insāniyya wa-l-salām, Beirut 1406/1985–63. Studies Rainer Brunner, Lātinīya lā-dīnīya. Muḥammad Rašīd Riḍā über Arabisch und Türkisch im Zeitalter des Nationalismus, in Johannes Zimmermann, Christoph Herzog, and Raoul Motika (eds.), Osmanische Welten. Quellen und Fallstudien (Bamberg 2016), 73–114 Norman Calder, Tafsīr from Ṭabarī to Ibn Kathīr. Problems in the description of a genre, illustrated with reference to the story of Abraham, in G.R. Hawting and Abdul-Kader A. Shareef (eds.), Approaches to the Qurʾān (London 1993), 101-40 Olivier Carré, Lectures du Coran. Qutb contre ʿAbduh, Maghreb Review 32 (2007), 31–47 Baudouin Dupret, Autorité et consultation en Islam. Présentation et traduction annotée des commentaires de Faḫr al-Dīn al-Rāzī, Rašīd Riḍā et Sayyid Quṭb sur Cor. III, 104 et 159, AI 29 (1995), 233–81 Werner Ende, Rashīd Riḍā, EI2 Albert Hourani, Arabic thought in the liberal age. 1798–1939, London 1962 Katharina A. Ivanyi, God’s custom concerning the rise and fall of nations. The Tafsīr al-manār on Q 8:53 and Q 13:11, Maghreb Review 32 (2007), 91–103 Katharina A. Ivanyi, Who’s in charge? The Tafsīr al-manār on questions of religious and political authority, Maghreb Review 32 (2007), 175–95 J.J.G. Jansen, The interpretation of the Koran in modern Egypt, Leiden 1974 Jacques Jomier, al-Manār, EI2 http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 12 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 Jacques Jomier, Le commentaire coranique du Manâr. Tendances modernes de l’exégèse coranique en Egypte, Paris 1954 Jacques Jomier, La raison et l’histoire dans le commentaire du Manar, MIDEO 19 (1989), 17–45 Jean-Yves L’Hopital, La lecture du Coran chez Muḥammad ʿAbduh et Rašīd Riḍā et son influence sur le mouvement réformiste, in Maher al-Charif and Salam Kawakibi (eds.), Le courant réformiste musulman et sa reception dans les societés arabes. Actes du colloque d’Alep à l’occasion du centenaire de la disparition du cheikh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Kawākibī, 31 mai – 1 juin 2002 (Damascus 2003), 139-52 Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Qurʾānic Christians. An analysis of classical and modern exegesis, Cambridge 1991 Christian van Nispen tot Sevenaer, Activité humaine et agir de Dieu. Le concept de “sunan de Dieu” dans le commentaire coranique du Manar, Beirut 1996 Christian van Nispen tot Sevenaer, Le commentaire coranique du Manâr. Un siècle plus tard, in Marie-Thérèse Urvoy (ed.), En hommage du père Jacques Jomier (Paris 2002), 247-57 Johanna Pink, Sunnitischer Tafsir in der modernen islamischen Welt. Akademische Traditionen, Popularisierung und nationalstaatliche Interessen, Leiden 2011 Johanna Pink, ʿAbduh, Muḥammad, EQS Umar Ryad, Islamic reformism and Christianity. A critical reading of the works of Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā and his associates (1898-1935), Leiden 2009 Ḥasīb al-Sāmarrāʾī, Rashīd Riḍā al-mufassir, Baghdad 1976 Aḥmad al-Sharabāṣī, Rashīd Riḍā ṣāhib al-Manār. ʿAṣruhu wa-ḥayātuhu wa-maṣādir thaqāfatihi, Cairo 1970 Ana Belén Soage, Rashīd Ridā’s legacy, MW 98 (2008), 1–23 Roberto Tottoli, Origin and use of the term isrāʾīliyyāt in Muslim literature, Arabica 46 (1999), 193-210 Rotraud Wielandt, Exegesis of the Qurʾān. Early modern and contemporary, EQS M. Brett Wilson, Translating the Qurʾan in an age of nationalism. Print culture and modern Islam in Turkey, Oxford 2014. http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 13 von 14 Riḍā, Rashīd - Brill Reference 02.01.17, 17:14 Cite this page Johanna Pink, “Riḍā, Rashīd”, in: Encyclopaedia of the Qurʾān, General Editor: Jane Dammen McAuliffe, Georgetown University, Washington DC. Consulted online on 02 January 2017 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/1875-3922_q3_EQCOM_050503> First published online: 2016 http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran/rida-rashid-EQCOM_050503 Seite 14 von 14